over between them.
Jealousy would not be likely to produce this set of manifestations in
young, foolish John; and I may say here at once, what I somewhat later
learned, that the boy had come with precisely the opposite purpose,
namely, to repeat and reenforce his steadfast constancy, and that it was
something far removed from jealousy which had spurred him to this.

I found the girl behind the counter at her post, grateful to me for
coming to ask how she was after the shock of yesterday, but unwilling to
speak of it at all; all which she expressed by her charming manner, and
by the other subjects she chose for conversation, and especially by the
way in which she held out her hand when I took my leave.

Near the post-office I was hailed by Beverly Rodgers, who proclaimed to
me at once a comic but genuine distress. He had already walked, he said
(and it was but half-past nine o'clock, as he bitterly bade me
observe on the church dial), more miles in search of a drink than his
unarithmetical brain had the skill to compute. And he confounded such a
town heartily; he should return as soon as possible to Charley's yacht,
where there was civilization, and where he had spent the night. During
his search he had at length come to a door of promising appearance, and
gone in there, and they had explained to him that it was a dispensary.
A beastly arrangement. What was the name of the razor-back hog they
said had invented it? And what did you do for a drink in this confounded
water-hole?

He would find it no water-hole, I told him; but there were methods which
a stranger upon his first morning could scarce be expected to grasp. "I
could direct you to a Dutchman," I said, "but you're too well dressed to
win his confidence at once."

"Well, old man," began Beverly, "I don't speak Dutch, but give me a
crack at the confidence."

However, he renounced the project upon learning what a Dutchman was.
Since my hours were no longer dedicated to establishing the presence
of royal blood in my veins I had spent them upon various local
investigations of a character far more entertaining and akin to my
taste. It was in truth quite likely that Beverly could in a very few
moments, with his smile and his manner, find his way to any Dutchman's
heart; he had that divine gift of winning over to him quickly all sorts
and conditions of men; and my account of the ingenious and law-baffling
contrivances, which you found at these little grocery shops,